Planning and Solar Farms

Debate between James Gray and Caroline Nokes

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[James Gray]

I am rather short of time. My hon. Friend will have time to reply in a moment.

That brings me to my final point, which is on the planning system. Wiltshire, as I said, is the second largest county in England, and we have hundreds of these applications right now. We have found that the Government have laid down targets for the county and therefore the planning officers very correctly say to the planning committee, “If you turn this down, as you may well want to turn it down, it will without question go to appeal. The inspector will without question allow it. And the barristers’ fees for the public inquiry will be down to the county.” Therefore, having a target for renewables on the county means that there is a huge presumption in favour of the local authority allowing this. That must be turned round.

I would like to see two things in the national planning policy framework when it comes forward later this year. First, I would like to see a return to the days when there was a presumption against using 3b agricultural land. That was the case. When my right hon. Friend George Eustice, whose constituency I cannot remember—

[Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)]

Order. We do not name colleagues.

[James Gray]

If I may say so, Ms Nokes, that is precisely why I said that I could not remember his constituency—I was hoping that I would be assisted. [Interruption.] He is my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice).

[Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)]

Or “the former Secretary of State” would suffice.

[James Gray]

My right hon. Friend appeared in front of the Environmental Audit Committee, on which I serve. He made it plain that, in his view, 3b land was included in the presumption against and it would be in the NPPF when it came out. He then had to write to me to correct that; officials made him correct that particular point.

We need to see, first, a reference to 3a and 3b. Secondly, we need to find some new way of applying the planning law so that there is no longer this presumption in favour of the developer. We must find a way of presuming against the developer and presuming in favour of preserving our green and pleasant land—presuming in favour of food security rather than energy security—and a way of putting these solar installations not on agricultural land but on large-scale industrial land and on previously used military land of the kind that I have described. We are in the process of concreting over our countryside for these things, covering it in totally unproductive mirrors in a way that will never be reversed. We will not go back to that agricultural land. We risk saying to our future generations, “We did this to your countryside; blame us for it.”

[Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)]

That brings us to the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman.

Black Maternal Health Awareness Week 2022

Debate between James Gray and Caroline Nokes

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

Thank you—Sir James?

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Sadly no—not yet. It is in the post.

[Caroline Nokes]

That is a terrible omission. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) for leading this debate on a crucial issue.

The Women and Equalities Committee has twice held one-off evidence sessions—although there is a slight conundrum in twice having one-off sessions—looking at black maternal health. It has taken evidence from campaign groups, such as Five X More, and experts in obstetrics and gynaecology, yet the picture does not change. Looking at the evidence, we have known that there is a disparity in the health outcomes for black mothers since the early 2000s. For 20 years, we have known that there is a problem, yet still it continues. It has been a huge privilege for me to serve on panels alongside people such as Clo and Tinuke from Five X More, who have done so much incredible campaigning to highlight the issue, as has the hon. Member for Streatham. It is crucial that we begin to see progress; we cannot, 12 months or 10 years down the line, continue to have the same debate.

Raising awareness in Parliament is vital, but what we actually need is Government action. The hon. Member for Streatham made a slight dig about Government reshuffles. I am delighted to see the Minister in her place; this is an issue on which we have engaged before and she takes it seriously. I hope that the Secretary of State for Health will himself grasp the issue, and ensure that we drive it forward to see progress.

We have heard that one of the challenges is data, and the lack of specific data being collected on maternal health outcomes for black and Asian women. I pay tribute to Five X More, which carried out its own experiences survey that included 2,000 women—a huge number—reporting their experiences and findings. The thing that really hits home for me is the repeated use of the phrases, “I didn’t feel listened to,” “We weren’t listened to,” and, “What I was experiencing was being ignored.”

I am loth to say that we sometimes have very gendered healthcare, but look at the evidence. Look at the fact that when there is medical research, it is almost exclusively carried out on men; look at the fact that drug trials are carried out on men; look at the fact that some of the highest backlogs as we come out of the pandemic are in health conditions predominantly affecting women. Whether it is in cardiac, obstetrics or another sphere of medicine, too often the experience is, “I didn’t think they were listening to me.” I am sure every Member hears that from their constituents, and that has been my experience as a constituency MP. I hear from my constituents that, specifically in the area of maternity, “I wasn’t listened to. Nobody paid attention. It was my body, and I knew something was wrong.”

Only last week, I received an email from a constituent who had lost his daughter-in-law moments after she gave birth. He was with his son, helping to bring up a baby and pursue a complaints procedure against the hospital in question. Throughout his email, he kept making the point that they had not been listened to. His daughter-in-law had been a midwife, and even she was not listened to.

Talking to black and particularly Muslim women—I should declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Muslim women—they feel that their voices are doubly ignored, and that there is that intersectionality. Whenever I talk to journalists about intersectionality, they look at me and say, “Please don’t use that word. Nobody understands that word.” It is imperative that we all understand that word. You will be discriminated against if you are a woman, and you will be discriminated against if you are a woman from a black, Asian or other minority ethnic group; when the two come together, as we find in maternity units in particular, women’s voices are not heard or listened to.

When we talk to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, as the hon. Member for Streatham has done, it calls for specific targets for black maternal health outcomes, and it is right to do so. Although it may be a small number as a percentage of births every year, it is still a significant number. The loss of one mother is one too many.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Gray and Caroline Nokes

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

It is crucial that, in addition to our assisted digital application process, we will have dedicated support—lines to help people through the process. But I am very conscious that there will be people with language difficulties; that has been raised with us by some of the user groups, and we are looking to see how we can assist them as well.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I greatly welcome the Minister’s announcement that the process will be smooth and easy to follow, but agree with the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) that a very large number of otherwise extremely sophisticated people in this country do not know that it will be as easy as my hon. Friend describes. By what mechanism will she get the message out to all these people that they are welcome here, that the process will be easy, and, crucially, that the cost of applying for residency will be no more than the current cost for a British citizen of applying for a passport?

[Caroline Nokes]

We have been very clear from the outset that the cost of the scheme will be no more than the cost of applying for a British passport, and indeed for those who already have permanent residency there will be no cost at all. It is crucial that we continue to work with our user groups, and as we roll the scheme forward we will be providing more information, including through our dedicated email service that we are sending out to people. But we do have an important communication job to make sure people know how to apply and when the scheme opens.

Dangerous Dogs

Debate between James Gray and Caroline Nokes

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. Progress towards legislative change has been made not only in Northern Ireland, but in Scotland. Such progress has, sadly, been lacking here.

Any legislation must be evidence based, proportionate and, importantly, best debated and drafted away from the perfectly understandable reaction that is always to the fore when there has been a dreadful attack. I do not seek to undermine the importance of and need for legislation to protect the public from dogs that are a danger, that have been trained and encouraged to be aggressive, and that, in increasing instances, are used as a weapon. That is why I welcome several of the components of Lord Redesdale’s Dog Control Bill, which was introduced in the other place and is currently on Third Reading. It aims to consolidate existing legislation, give greater flexibility and discretion to enforcers and the courts, include a genuine preventive effect, improve public safety and animal welfare and reduce the costs of enforcement.

At present, enforcers have to wait for an incident to occur before they can step in and deal with the animal. As we have heard, there is a lack of consistent enforcement, but if police have a dog of a banned type drawn to their attention, they must act, whether that dog has done anything aggressive or not.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I have agreed entirely with every word my hon. Friend has said until now, but she seems to have slipped back from her argument of a moment ago that it is the deed, not the breed, that matters. She now seems to be saying that it is the breed that matters and that, if the police are aware of a particular breed and that there is DNA evidence or a microchip to prove it, they should step in prior to an incident. Surely the process should be incident-driven, not breed-driven.

[Caroline Nokes]

With respect to my hon. Friend, that is my exact point. Under the current legislation, if a banned type or breed is drawn to the police’s attention, the police must act, regardless of its behaviour. There is currently no provision for an owner to be able to apply to a court for a seized dog to be returned, and the 1991 Act predicts a dog’s behaviour based on its physical conformation, which, I would contend, is simply wrong.

Indeed, to drift off into the anecdotal, the dog that made me run in the opposite direction fastest during last year’s general election campaign was a golden retriever. That breed is never going to appear on a list of dangerous dogs, but the one that I encountered seemed rather enamoured by the prospect of chewing my leg off. We need to establish in law the principle that it is the deed, not the breed, that determines whether a dog is dangerous or not. That view is widely held, even at the very highest levels of Government.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution and hope that the Minister will comment on it later.

I would appreciate the Minister’s comments on the range of possible measures to tackle the problem. The possible solutions include dog control notices, compulsory microchipping, muzzling in public places and, importantly, training for owners. Rather than generalising a type or a breed, those are practical suggestions that directly address the specific behaviour and the ways to ameliorate it.

Failure to comply with a dog control notice could lead to the responsible person becoming liable to a fine and potentially being disqualified from owning or keeping a dog for a prescribed period. This issue has been the subject of numerous written and oral questions, consultation and reviews of existing legislation. The issue is not confined to cities, but I highlight the work of the deputy Mayor of London, the Metropolitan police and many hon. and right hon. Members who represent constituencies in the capital, where there are certainly greater issues than in other parts of the country. Yet still we have unsatisfactory legislation that does not address the rise of the so-called status dog, which has impacted on the police and on their ability to carry out their role. The legislation desperately needs updating.

I urge the Minister to publish the Government’s response to the consultation on dangerous dogs, for which we have been waiting a considerable time. Will he also indicate whether he supports the measures in Lord Redesdale’s Bill, and whether he will consider introducing compulsory microchipping? I am the first to acknowledge that that is a measure of traceability rather than prevention, but it was simply not an option in 1991 when the Dangerous Dogs Act was introduced. Microchipping was first introduced in the UK in about 2000. The procedure is now commonplace and can be carried out by not only vets but registered practitioners, which has brought down the cost. I appreciate that microchipping will inevitably be most prevalent among the law-abiding majority, but it will indelibly link dog to owner and provide an important step forward.

Obviously there will need to be a register that is updated at every change of ownership, but dogs do not change hands that often. The vast majority of owners have dogs for life and, although I understand concerns that a register will be another imposition on responsible citizens, it will also be a way to steadily move towards a situation in which owners are accountable and dogs behaving in an antisocial way are identifiable. If there is no excuse for mistaken identity, enforcement officers will be able to judge the deed not the breed.

[Mr Gray]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend up to now. However, does she not remember the days when we had dog licences? They did not work. The bad guys did not have them; only the good guys had them. Surely what she is proposing is a bureaucratic, interventionist, centralised solution to the issue. If we want to deal with the problem of people who have criminal intent and behave badly, licensing dogs will not achieve that.

[Caroline Nokes]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, but I disagree with him. This is not about licensing; this is about being able to scientifically identify a dog that has perpetrated some sort of unpleasant deed. Many other types of animals are microchipped and are identifiable from birth. We could easily have registers that trace any transfer of ownership. As I have said and as the Dogs Trust has taught us, a dog is for life, not just for Christmas. They rarely change hands, and we simply need to move to a situation whereby we can identify who is responsible for which dog.

As I said at the outset, we are 20 years on from the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. Police forces, animal welfare organisations, vets and nurses all believe that that legislation failed to solve the problem. It is high time that that failure was addressed.